The Beauty and Simplicity of Training with Attraction

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Attraction in Action!

I love this video by Emily Larlham showing the power of teaching a dog the touch cue. This is one of the very first behaviors I teach any horse I work with. It creates the ultimate environment of attraction where the animal moves towards something that feels good, rather than away from something that feels bad. It activates their SEEKING emotion. (Dr. Jaak Panksepp)

I first teach the touch cue using a target stick, then I teach them to target the back of my hand. This has probably been the single-most valuable skill I’ve labeled for my horses. For instance, instead of having to motivate them from behind (waving of arms, shushing, tapping with whip) say to walk on a trailer, or move out of my space, I can simply hold out my hand or target stick and say touch, and my horse gets to move towards something with eagerness, and happy anticipation rather than moving away from an irritant or aversive.

Once my horses became ‘touch’ savvy, is when I began to experience and feel the contrast between attracting my horse into a behavior or forcing. Soon I began to see with my horses that even a benign tap on the hindquarters to move them more quickly through a gate was ‘repelling’ them. Now I can stand in front of them with my hand outstretched and invite or attract them where I need them to go. Their attentiveness, softness and enthusiasm to interact with me is much higher when they are moving toward something to touch rather than trying to avoid being touched.

Then, the exciting part is that they can learn to touch and target other objects with both their mouth and hooves which has made my life so dreamy and easy with my herd. More about this attractive easy dreaminess next time…..

The Fine Print

All of the material on the pages of this weblog, I Feel Good, My Horse Feels Good, is copyrighted. This protection includes but is not limited to the articles, photographs, video and Horse Pucky cartoons. All rights are reserved.

If you’d like to use some of my blog’s content for personal use, feel free. If it’s for reproduction, please ask first. If it’s for professional or commercial reproduction, definitely ask first, along with buying my horses some hay.

As with all things equine and their inherent risks of potential for injury to horse and human, the exercises and examples of the things I do with my horses fall into the category, Try at your own risk. I cannot assume responsibility, and neither can my horses.